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Edith's Streets

This blog records notes about London (and Greater London) streets - what the buildings are, what the background is. These pages have been compiled over many years and from many sources - its not intended to copy from other people's work.Each post represents a square on the Ordnance Survey grid -and the vast majority of information is culled from map based source material - Ordnance Survey, A/Z, etc.

On some inner city squares only a quarter of each square is done because of the volume of material involved

Please add your comments and corrections - I am sure there are lots of mistakes - and my idea is to build up a correct record interactively

Red- it is (hopefully) there nowBlue - its interesting but its goneNo colour, same as the text - don't know. needs to be verified

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

River Lea/Bow Creek Canning Town

Canning Town on the Essex bank of Lea/Bow Creek. This was, and is, a heavily industrialised area together with a very down market housing area with markets, shops, cinemas, pubs and many charitable and missionary organisations. In the 2000s public transport has been transformed and much housing renewed, and it is an area in a great deal of change.

The road is named after a local ARP warden
who was killed during the Blitz. A pre-war suburban ideal is demonstrated in this
West Ham estate.

Barking
Road

It was built by the
Commercial Road Turnpike Trust from the East India Docks eastwards. Now the A124 it formed part of
the original A13 before the building so the East Ham and Barking Bypass in
1928. It was widened as part of the plans for Silvertown Way and the new bridge over the Lea.Tollgate. This stood at
the Essex end of the bridge under the Turnpike Trust.

Canning Town Station.
The original station was on the south side of Barking Road and was roughly on
the site of the current station (which is in Silvertown Way).It was opened in 1847 having been built by the Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway on their Stratford to North
Woolwich line.The line had been built
to carry coal from the Thames and this was the only station between Stratford
and North Woolwich.It was called
Barking Road. In 1873 it was rebuilt and renamed
Canning Town after the new name for the area.

Canning Town Station.
In 1888
it was resited by the Great Eastern Railway to a site on the north side of
Barking Road
This station had a small street level building on Barking Road and two
platforms with another platform added in 1895 for Victoria Park services. There
were also two through goods lines. In 1932 the street level building was replaced
and embellished with carved stone panels with the company and station names. In
1979 this was demolished and a new building erected on the corner of Stephenson
Street. This was demolished in 1994.

Signal box.
Elevated

Canning Town Goods
Depot.This was opened by the London
& North Western Railway in 1881 and was east of the station. From 1950 it
was called Canning Town North. This closed in 1967 although a private siding
remained and the yard was taken over by scrap dealers. The site is now used for
the Wickes and Carpet Eight stores with an infilled bridge at the back of their
car park.

Canning Town Railway
Goods Yard. Great Eastern Railway Goods and Coal Depot. This had a river frontage
of 480 ft with accommodation for 12 barges.A siding went to Blackwall Goods Yard with branch onto the area which is
now the Limmo and others to works on the east bank of Bow Creek.Railway Bridge. This was rebuilt in the early 1930s as part of the scheme for Silvertown Way The bridge was built in reinforced concrete by Messrs. D.G. Somerville and Company Ltd.Essoldo Cinema. This was on the corner of Victoria
Dock Road. It had originally opened in 1875 as Ralf’s Music Hall, and later
became the Royal Albert Music Hall. It was rebuilt in 1909 as the Imperial
Palace of Varieties by John Farmer, and later became the Imperial Cinema. It
burnt down in 1931 and Rebuilt in 1934 by C. Brett, it was then in an Art Deco
style by George Coles and became the New Imperial Cinema. and organist Max
Bruce played the Wurlitzer 2Manual/5Rank organ, transferred from the Tolmer
Cinema, Kings Cross. The cinema had a fully equipped stage and four dressing
rooms. It was taken over by the Essoldo Cinemas chain in 1955 and re-named. It was
closed in 1963 with "The Quatermass Experiment" and became bingo club.
It was demolished in 1967 for the flyover

14 The Liverpool
Arms on the junction with Silvertown Way. It was a Charrington’s house and
built before 1886.It had a reputation
for ‘trouble’. It was demolished in the 1970s for road widening and the Canning
Town Flyover.

Pylons

23 Bridge House
pub. This was a major venue for rock music
featuring bands for instanceIron Maiden, Depeche Mode, and The Blues Band. It was closed in
1982 and demolished.

45 Canning Town fire
station. Built 1897-8 to replace the
fire station at Plaistow. Replaced in 1931. Site is now under the roundabout.
After closure this may have been Emerson’s Garage, for private
buses.

51 Sunny Smiles dentist. This was built as
the London and County Bank by H Cheston & Perkin, 1897. It is in red brick
with a tall gable and some Essex based decorative features.

67 Royal Oak Pub. Former Courage house, now
an estate agent and flats. A big pub with built in 1848 and later rebuilt. It
has a tiled entrance with lots of oak leaves in an oval frame over the door. The
pub had a boxing
ring and training area on the first floor run by Terry Lawless where Frank
Bruno and others trained. The pub closed in 2002 after Lawless's retirement. It
has been substantially rebuilt since, although the frontage remains.

79 St Margaret and All Saints, Roman
Catholic Church. Founded 1859 and built 1875-6 by E. Tasker and additions
following war damage. It is in brick with circular window and Star of David
tracery.

Presbytery. Next to the church built 1884 by
Tasker.

Church Centre by Ronald Wylde
Associates.

81 Anchor House. Originally a Roman Catholic seamen's mission, built
in 1962 by the Roman Catholic Apostleship of the Sea. Its original purpose was
to provide temporary accommodation to out-of-work seafarers but with the
closure of the London Docks it fell into disrepair nut then transformed itself
into a residential life skills centre for the homeless. This is a six-storey
residential slab block facing the road.

94 Sweetingham’s Cinema. Opened in the early 1900’s,
closed by the local authority in 1909, for safety reasons. It was demolished in
1912, and the Grand Cinema was built on the site.

94 The Grand Cinema opened in 1913, Designed by
Emden & Egan and owned by Kinematograph Properties Ltd. In 1928 it was
taken over by Denman/Gaumont Theatres and sound equipment installed. It was bombed
in 1940 and closed, never to re-open. It is now the site of the I Rathbone
Street Market and an open-air car parking site.

103 Canning Town Library. In red brick and
Portland stone with lots of carvings. It was the first library in West Ham and
opened in 1893 with a contribution from Passmore Edwards who paid for the
original stock of books. The inside was reconstructed after bombing which
destroyed an array of technical gadgetry, devised by the Chief Librarian,

105 Community Links
Trust in the Canning Town Public Hall and public library. This was built in
1893/4 on a site which had been used as a platform by local radical speakers.The first local public electricity supply
generator was installed at the back of the hall by Lewis Angell, Borough Engineer. It used a dynamo driven by gas engine, and sold power to two customers. The
Hall is in grandiose brick and stone with a massive pediment and balustrade and
a lot of carving. The ground floor was intended for swimming baths but instead became
a hall with a police court and offices.

110 Ordnance Arms

137 Imperial
Bioscope Theatre. Burgoyne’s American Bioscope
was in a converted shop. It was renamed Imperial Bioscope by George Gales. It
was closed by the local authority in 1909, and did not fulfill the requirements
of the Cinematograph Licencing Act.

143-147 The Mansfield House University
Settlement founded by Mansfield College, Oxford in by E .W.Troup opened in
former shops here, the ‘residents’ built a hall behind in 1898for a boys club, which became known as
Mansfield Hall.It had three storeys and
was had a single-storey wing containing a galleried gymnasium designed by F.
Troup. In 1897 this building became the Men’s Club of which Keir Hardie was a
member of the Men’s Club.

146 Electroscope Cinema which opened pre 1909. It was
re-named Coronet Electric theatre and was compulsorily closed in 1909 by the
Council for safety reasons.

164 -166 Holy Trinity National
School, opened here in 1861. The Plaistow and Victoria Docks mission opened a
new school in Barking Road in 1861 opposite the site of Holy Trinity
church.A new building was built the
following year. The boys and girls departments were closed in 1936–7 and the
infants in 1940

171Mr.Iveys’ domestic machinery shop. He was the
first customer of electricity from the Council In 1895-In 1908 a cinema was
opened here in what was said to be an old sweet factory. It was opened by Arthur Gale as Gale’s Bioscope Show and had two screens. It was burnt
down in 1909, but reopened in 1911 to designs by L. Jint as Gale’s Electric
Theatre. It closed in 1914/1915. This is now a betting shop. It is also said
that this was used as a Labour Exchange and a Council Electricity Department showroom

Holy Trinity Church. Built in 1867, it
was damaged by bombing in 1941 but restored and reopened in 1942. However the
church closed in 1948 and was later demolished It was
built opposite the National School in Barking Road, (now the site of a
McDonalds drive through Burger Bar), which was built by Sir Antonio Brady and
had been used for worship since 1861. Holy Trinity was badly damaged by Bombing
in 1941, but re-opened in 1942. It finally closed in 1948. The site was late
sold to West Ham Council who built a block of flats on a part of the site. The
site of the High Alter could not be built on and can been seen today as a small
area of grass next the termination point for Buses at the junction of Hermit
& Barking Road.

213a New South West Ham CIU Working Men’s Club

217 flats on the site of Essex
House, which was a large house built in the late 19th In the 1950s
it became the site of Grange Coaches

219 The Princess
Alexandra

South West Ham Technical School.Built 1951-2 by T.E. North with R.B. Padmore
and C. Macaree in the Modern style with a flat roof.It later became the Trinity Boys School, and
then Cumberland school. It has now been demolished and a replacement for Rokeby
School being built.

Beckton
Road

Beckton Road. This formed the new approach from
Barking Road to the by-pass, avoiding the tramlines and the long run through Plaistow and
East Ham.

Canning Town Local Service Centre. Built on
part of the school site taken up by MacDonald’s.

1 The Beckton Arms

Bidder
Street

Named after George
Parker Bidder, the calculating boy, and entrepreneur and engineer of much of
the Royal Docks. The area consists largely of scrap yards

Bridge House 2. Music
venue replacing the demolished Bridge House in Barking Road

162 Dartmouth Arms

Electra Business Park
– on the site of some of the West Ham Power Station

Canning Town Board
School was opened in 1877. It was reorganized in 1932 for juniors and infants
and by 1939 for infants only. It was closed in 1945 and demolished. The site
was added to that of the power station.

Universal Milling
moved from Elland Road to here in 1953

Bow
Creek

Embankment works
along the Lea as it meanders in this section were built as an unemployment relief
scheme in 1931.

Pipe Bridge. This
bridge, of which one red brick pier remains, was a highly ornamental bridge
built by the Gas Light and Coke Company as an outpost of their 1870s Beckton
Works. It thus brought the gas, heroically and ornamentally, from Beckton into
London. Demolished. (Why??)

The Iron Bridge.This was a 19th iron bridge. Designs
submitted by the elder John Rennie in 1909 were not used but in 1810 a bridge
was built to a design by James Walker and Alfred Burges for the Commercial Road
Turnpike Trust. It was tolled with a toll house at the Essex end. The Trust was
abolished in 1871. The bridge was damaged by a barge in 1887 and had to be
shored up. It was demolished in 1896.The name ‘Iron Bridge’ persisted
in the names of other local features

New Iron Bridge. This
was designed under Alexander Binnie, Chief Engineer to London County Council,
and erected by the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company. 1893/1896

New Canning Town
Bridge (aka Barking Road Bridge) constructed in 1932 as part of the improvements for riverside access which included Silvertown Way. This was on a new alignment
to north of the Pipe Bridge. It was designed by Rendel, Palmer and Tritton wth a steel
skew span, 200 feet long and 84 feet wide. It had a 57 foot wide
carriagewayand had two tram tracks down
the centre. The contractors were Messrs. Shanks and McEwan.Canning Town flyover. The
westbound lanes and eastbound lane originate in the 1960s flyover, while the
eastbound lanes were completed in 2002. It opened in its present form in 2004.

Jubilee Footbridge.
This is on the alignment of the old iron bridge using some of its abutments.
This is a combined foot bridge and pipe bridge

Railway bridge. Line
from Thames Wharf to East India Dock.Eastern
Counties and Thames Junction railway built a single track branch line from
Stratford to Leamouth for the pepper warehouses of the East India Company Goods
until 1848.This railway bridge is still
there and is thought to date originally from 1848. It appears to have
originally been a Drawbridge and then by
the 1890s a Swing Bridge. By 1916 it appears to be a standard girder bridge, which
it remains. It is supported on cast iron
columns filled with concrete

Burke
Street

66 The Huntingdon
Arms. This was a former Charrington’s Brewery pub, present by 1896.Closed in 1986 and became a laundrette, which
has also closed and the building is empty

River Christian
Centre. The former swimming pool of the
Mayflower Centre built with funds from Bernhard Baron, the philanthropic
American tobacco magnate. Big thermal windows along each side and chimney
disguised as a campanile.Canning
Town

Built from 1850 for
dockworkers, and referring to a low quality housing area around Victoria Dock
Road.It had, in, 1855 been called
Hallsville after the landlord.The name
is first
recorded in 1848 and is probably named either from Sir Samuel Canning, an
industrialist who had associations with the manufacturing firm of S. W. Silver
& Co or from George Canning, an engineer associated with the development of
the docks and railways here or the the prime minister of 1827 or his son who was Viceroy
of India - or a nearby canning factory there. It also includes an area called Cherry
Island – which had been market gardens, and was very squalid.

Caxton
Street North

Goswell Bakeries Ltd.
A wholesale bread baker started in 1950
with licenses for speciality breads. It produces a West Indian bread and
unbranded bagels, light rye and Polish rye breads. Dr Vogel began making bread
in the 1950s with muesli bread and Goswell's produced a mixed grain variety in
1972. They supply major supermarkets throughout the country. They also supply
organic bread to vegetarian wholefood restaurants

Moss Electrical Co. Moss Electrical was established in 1994 and has works
with major suppliers to service electrical contractors,

Concorde House. Concorde
Glass Ltd.

Peacock Gym. The Peacock gym
was founded by Tony and Martin Bowers. Sam Bowers was a bare knuckle fighter in
the 1860s; Tim Bowers, fought in the 1890’s and his son Dan organised prize
fights; George won schoolboy championships in the 1930s and was a coach. Kevin
won Championships in 1970s. Charles was an Army champion in rhea 1940s. Walter
boxed in the 1950s. Jackie boxed in the 1950s and beat Terry Spinks twice. Tony
and Martin got the use of a room in a tower block which became their first gym
and they moved to larger premises and eventually at the Railway Tavern and then
at the Peacock in Freemasons Road. Then they moved to an old canvas making
factory in 1993 and developed it.

Memorial to
Bradley Stone. Stone was a young boxer who died two days after winning a fight
in Bethnal Green, which had won him the British Super Bantamweight title in
1994

Cliff
Walk

Cliff Walk
Evangelical Church.This has services
and input in Portuguese.

East India Dock Road

Blackwall Goods Depot. This opened in 1848 and served a network of sidings on the west side of the Creek. It had originally been intended to provide rail access to the East India Dock Company’s Wharf and Pepper Warehouses, which the railway themselves purchased in the 1880s. The line left the North Woolwich Line south of the then Canning Town Station going eastwards at first and then turning on a steep gradient towards the creek. Inside the depot horses were initisally used to move stock although they were replacved in time by electric capstans.

Hallsville
Road

Hallsville Tavern one of the few pubs left. Built 1840 with curly bargeboards, possibly the sole
survivor of the earliest developments in Canning Town

Jude
Street

St Luke's Centre.This was St. Luke’s church built in 1873-5 by
Giles & Gone. By 1985 it was vandalized, but saved from demolition by a
local group, and converted for community uses by Peter Eley. Inside, five floor
levels are provided but keep some of the drama of the full height. There is a cafe,
and mosaics of 1893 with the Twelve Apostles and the Ascension, with angels and
foliage

Kier
Hardie Estate

This was named for West Ham’s, and
Parliament's, first Labour M.P. it was one of the first redevelopment areas in
Britain and demonstrated successes and failures of post-war planning. It incorporated
existing churches, community centres and pubs. The population was kept to
seventy people per acre although later phases were denser and, eventually,
higher.

Killip
Close

This was Wilberforce
Street

St Fidelis Friary. Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. This opened in 1999and runs Friar Bennet's Kitchen and a night shelter for homeless
men. This was the Great War memorial church of Our Lady of Sorrows, built in
1925 as a chapel of ease for the Tidal Basin area and had links with the Franciscan
missionaries of who added a chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in1931. In 1966
the church was reconstructed as Bennett Hall for St. Margaret's Youth Club

Limmo
Peninsula

Ecology Park. A small linear park
formed by a bend in Creek. It features small streams, interlinked ponds and
meadows, with the tidal Creek nearby. It is linked by a riverside walkway to
East India Dock Basin Nature Reserve and is run by the Lee Valley Regional Park
Authority. It has nationally
rare invertebrates

Newham
WayA13

At the crossing
of the Lea the road changes character dramatically, becoming a dual three-lane expressway
which continues to the Greater London Boundary. The dual carriageway section
through Newham is Newham Way which is
part of the East Ham & Barking Bypass, and originally dualled by the
1960s. This section is built to high standards, but was subject to a 40 mph
speed limit, and 50 mph in 2011.

Orchard
Place

The Peninsula lies
inside one of the convolutions of Bow Creek/River Lea as it flows towards the
Thames.It was once called Goodluck Hope and there was
one building in the mid 18th called Handle Hall at the south end. Orchard Place once ran
straight up the Peninsula from the south, and was heavily industrialised. It is
now largely a construction site for Crossrail

‘The
Chartered’ Gas Light and coke Company Tar Works. In 1817 the Chartered decided to
open its own tar works in a site bought from Wigram. Mr, Dalton, who had been foreman
caulker with Wigram, was put in charge. As an expert in the use of tar for
shipping he had already given evidence to a Parliamentary enquiry. The works
expanded and more equipment was bought. Dalton prepared information about the
use of tar on ships to a poor reception from the Navy Board and some hostility
from Royal Dockyard workers who objected to the smell. Sadly the works closed
due to falling demand in 1833. It was sold to Turner, Shakell and Hopkinson

Samuel Turner. Mr. Turner had been
making tar for ten years when he bought the Orchard Place works from the Gas
Light and Coke Company and was still there in 1850s making varnish, Roman
cement, naphtha,
Paraffin and ammonia. In the later 1850s Blewitt took over the works and it later
became known as Jubilee Wharf

Samuda Works. Shipbuilder
Jacob Samuda first set up here in 1843 and remained until the mid 1850s.

W. W. Howard
Brothers & Co. in Jubilee Wharf. The main known structures on the site
were two large open sided timber storage sheds built in 1936–7, with Belfast
Truss roof construction. Demolished in 1993 for the Pura car park

Blackwall Galvanised Iron Co. makers of roofing
and kegs established 1882 from 1902 they were part of Baldwins Ltd.

Mission Hall, at the southern corner of Orchard Place and Leamouth Road,
in what was once known as Wrights Buildings or Terrace.

School opened in 1874, in a converted warehouse at the corner of Duke
Street

Bow Creek London Board School. In 1894, The London School Board bought part
of the old glass works site, and built a new school with a hall, four
classrooms, two infant schoolrooms, and a generous sized playground. It opened in
1896. In 1936 the pupils transferred to Oban Street School but the building was
still standing in 1956. Now demolished

Pura Foods.In the 1960s-70s Pura was part of
Acatos and Hutcheson who made edible oils and fats.On this site they were Pure Lard Ltd with a
large refining and deodorising plant. But became Pura Foods in 1988 and new
plant was installed at Leamouth including for hydrogenation of fats and a plant
for making PVC bottles.

Thames Plate
Glass Works, which covered the entire north end of the peninsula 1835 - 1874.
It was the only plate glass manufacturer in southern England, and supplied
around 12% of the national market. They employed women polished
the plate glass for mirrors. The factory cast one of the 28-inch blanks for a
‘scope on Wandsworth Common and this was a record sized lens for 18 years.The firm was relaunched in 1864 with
H.Bessemer as the largest shareholder. In 1866 there were two 2 engine houses, grinding and
polishing shops and a manager's house. Closed following
liquidation 1874

Crown Wharf. This
was a barge building site from 1871 for William Cox. Later Vokins & Company
Ltd, lightermen and barge-repairers, from around 1915 and remained there until
1970s. Vokins had been on a number of sites in the area from the mid 1880s and continued
until taken over in the 1970s.William
Vokins himself was prominent in the Watermen’s Company, funding almshouses in
Ditchling. The site later became part of
Pura Foods.

9 Crown Public House. On site from the late 1840s to the mid 1930s

Bow Creek Mills,
seed crushers and oil refiners 1884.They
were W. H. Stead, a Liverpool-based firm. They built an oil-crushing mill, and a
refinery with boiler-house, engine-room and chimney. In 1901 they were taken
over to become part of British Oil and Cake Mills Ltd and in the 1930s by Ocean
Harvest Ltd part of the Lever Empire and making animal food from whale meat and
this continued into the 1940s.

Upper Wharf. Patent Stamped Railway Axle Box Company here 1889
-1894. They had a factory with three furnaces, a chimney shaft, and offices. The
company went out of business in 1894

Upper Wharf from
1894 this was used for the manufacture of Petrifite a white cement which bound
together any old rubbish to make cheap blocks. This went out of business in 1902.

Upper Wharf. From
1902 this was Fowler Brothers, sugar merchants refinery and makers of yummy
black treacle. They had originally been on Glasshouse Wharf, which they kept. They
built a new refinery designed by specialists John Clarkson. They remained on
site into the 1970s when they were taken over by Manebre, and then Tate and
Lyle.

Cooperage Wharf
at the north end developed after 1902 with engineering

Davies Wharf. Site of
Thames Sack & Bag Company. Burnt down in fires in 1912 and 1935.

Rathbone
Market

The market was
created here in the early 1960s as part of development plans when market stalls
which had been in a number of partly ad hoc locations in the area were
encouraged into a newly created market area.A great deal of Canning Town had been destroyed
in Second World War bombing and the entire area to the south was replanned in a
scheme planned as early as 1944 as part of Forshaw and Abercrombie's Greater
London plan and the West Ham Development Plan. The market was designed by by
T.E.North, the then Borough Architect as a wedge-shaped market place, with
covered stalls, enclosed by low flat shops and a ten-storey slab block.Much of this has now been demolished in
preparation for a new round of regeneration.

12 Rathbone Clinic

Rathbone
Street

Point blocks. The first to be built by West
Ham Council in 1961-4 of eleven storeys

76 The Flying Scud,
This Charrington’s house dated from 1872 and closed in 1995. Now housing.

38a
The Prince Arthur Pub, This was known as Drakie but demolished before 1980.

Rogers
Road

62
The Ground Rent Tavern. Thiswas a Watney's
house demolished in 2006 and housing built on the site

Ruscoe Road

St.Luke’s Primary School. Opened in 2000
along with the new church

St. Luke’s Church. Built 1999-2000 by Ronald
Wylde Partnership replacing the older church which is in community use. The new
church also provides spaces to be used by the school. In the chapel are six
stained glass windows from the Royal Marine Chapel, Deal.

29 New Shakespeare’s House. This was The
Shakespeare’s Head pub which closed in 2002 to become flats. It dates from
before 1862 and was a Watney’s House.

Shirley
Street

3 United Methodist Church. Founded in 1853 and a church
and schoolroom here in 1873.It was
destroyed in bombing in 1940; the site was sold to the council for housing in
1963 was.

15 Streeties. Old Watney's pub with a bare, ramshackle
interior.

36 Stage and Go. Theatre school

78 The Rose of
Denmark was a Watney’s pub that dated back to 1867. It closed in 1993 and was demolished
in the late 2000s. Before the closure of the docks it had opened at 6am.

G. Pidduck and Co. Sheet metal and thermal insulation on site
here from 1877. Now dissolved.

Silvertown
Way

Road built for access to the docks
and to by pass Victoria Dock Road. It was built in in 1934 and linked Barking
and North Woolwich Roads running above Victoria Dock Road, the railway and the
dock entrance.The section crossing the Royal
Victoria Dock is a long viaduct with a beam and slab construction and reinforced
concrete columns. Consulting engineers were Rendell, Palmer and Tritton
and contractors were Dorman Long.The road
allowed the western entrance of the Royal
Victoria Dock to be closed. To achieve thus 3,600 were rehoused in an estate in
West Ham. It was opened by Hore Belisha in
1934.

Canning Town Station. Opened in 1999 it runs between North Greenwich and
West Ham on the Jubilee Line and between East India Station and Royal Victoria on
the Docklands Light Railway; and also between East India and West Silvertown on
the Docklands Light Railway. There is also a bus interchange. The station was
moved here from north side of Barking Road where it had been since 1888. The new station is
by John Sly & Partners, who won the
job as Troughton McAslan. It is in glass, concrete and aluminium.Link for three rail lines and bus interchange
with essentially two stations in parallel, with double-deck train platforms
raised on concrete pillars above a submerged third storey with a staircase to
the underground ticket hall. There is a panel from the hull of HMS Warrior, the
first warship, built locally in 1860 and there is also reference to the hammers,
of West Ham United. The inscription was carved by Richard Kindersley. It is on
the site of the Essoldo cinema.

Holiday Inn Express

Silvocea Way

This new road and the vehicle test station
at its north end are the site of East India Company warehouses. Built 1808-1820
but had previously used for the production of building materials for the dock
itself. After the company’s demise in
the 1830s they were sold to the East India Dock Company, and in the 1840s they
were bought by the Eastern Counties Railway Company with which they remained.
Some buildings were destroyed by bombing. In 1983 the London Docklands
Development Corporation bought the area.The buildings were known as the pepper warehouses and some were designed
by Samuel Pepys Cockerell. Under the
East India Dock Company they were used for grain but found to be uneconomic.
The Railway Company built a line into the area from their Canning Town Goods yard
and it became known as the Blackwall Goods Yard handling coal and coke. It closed
in 1968.It has since used as a depot
and works department by Tower Hamlets Council. Star Lane

So called because it
led to Star Field. The eastern end of the road is now Newhaven Lane and the
length of the road broken up by green areas and small parks

Star Lane Park. Green
park area formed by the demolition of a number of streets to the south of Star
Lane since the 1980s.

Stephenson
Street

Industrial and
trading sites

Durham Pub. Appears to
be still open. It dates from at least the mid-1850s

VP . The company was
founded in Harrogate in 1954 as a plant hire company called Vibratory
Roller and Plant Hire Limited.

St Gabriel church. This
stood on the west side of the street fronting on to a side road, Wellington
Street, and was consecrated in 1876, it was bombed in the Second World War and demolished
din the 1950s

Tarling
Road

The Recreation Ground was opened in 1892 and
is named after James Keir Hardie, who was returned as the first Labour MP by
the constituency of West Ham South in 1892.

Trinity Gardens

Housing built post war on the site of the bombed
Trinity Church which had been designed by Banks & Barry in 1867.

Vincent
Street

River Christian Centre - in 2003, River
Church was formed by merging the Elim Way Fellowship and Mayflower Family
Centre Churches, The Mayflower Family Centre, Built by Geoffrey Raymond
1923-30, extended and remodelled by Stillman Eastwick Field c. 1977-80. It was founded
as the Malvern College Mission in 1894 in a row of terraced houses but expanded
1918 by Sir Reginald Kennedy-Cox as a Dockland Settlement after 1958 as the
Mayflower. It has Tudor style buildings for residences, club rooms and chapel
arranged around a quadrangle. The main entrance is in a two-storey range for
residential workers with an added Youth Centre With a vandal-proof, interior. The
Chapel of St. George and St. Helena was built in 1929- with an interior covered
by a hammer beam roof with angels on the beam-ends and many art works including
scenes of 1930s workers and their families with Christ against a background of
Thames dockside by Reginald Bell.A second
residential range dates from 1930. The Family Centre was established by Rev
David Sheppard in January 1958, helped by David being a internationally known
cricketer and he was followed by other dedicated workers, In 1990, a leadership
team was formed, with the desire to establish Mayflower as a church on biblical
principles rather than an institution but lost grant funding for their work. In
2003 they merged with the Elim church and 'River Church' has become an
established part of the Canning Town, East London Community.

Wharf
Road

Whitford Armstrong
Structural Co., 1910-1967

Sources

Bird.
The Geography of the Port of London

Bow Creek School website

Business
cavalcade of London,

Carr.
Docklands

Carr.
Docklands History Survey

Cinema
Theatre Association newsletter

Cinema
Treasures web site

Closed
Pubs web site

Clunn.
The Face of London

Connor.
Branch Lines Around North Woolwich

Connor
and Halford. The Forgotten Stations of Greater London

Co-partners Magazine.

Curwen.
Old Plaistow

Disused
Stations web site

East London History Society
Newsletter

East
of London. Old and New

Field.
Place names of London,

Glassmaking
in London. Web site

GLIAS
Newsletter

London
Railway RecordLondon's Industrial ArchaeologyMills.
Gas and Chemicals in East London